When does Thomas' buckwheat bloom in California?

Most often in April. Across 415 dated, research-grade observations of Eriogonum thomasii in California, the flowering season runs roughly February to May.

Peak April In flower 415 Examined 530 State California

Flowering 415 in flower of 530 examined

57%

81%

100%

83%

33%

53%

Proportion of examined Eriogonum thomasii in California in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	37	65	57%	45% to 68%
Feb	114	140	81%	74% to 87%
Mar	167	205	81%	76% to 86%
Apr	63	63	100%	94% to 100%
May	15	18	83%	61% to 94%
Jun	0	0	too few examined
Jul	0	0	too few examined
Aug	0	0	too few examined
Sep	0	0	too few examined
Oct	0	0	too few examined
Nov	3	9	33%	12% to 65%
Dec	16	30	53%	36% to 70%

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Eriogonum thomasii in California observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 415 of 530 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.wt38fd.

What this is, and what it is not

This is a record of when people in California found Eriogonum thomasii in flower, not a forecast. It is computed only from observations made in California, so it is not the species’ global average dragged onto a map: the same plant flowers on different dates in different places, and that is the entire point of the page.

It will not tell you what your particular plant will do this year. Bloom time moves with the season, with altitude, and with the weather, and a warm February pulls everything forward. We publish the distribution and the sample size, and we refuse to draw a month that too few people examined.

The plant

Eriogonum thomasii

Thomas' buckwheat

Sourcesevery claim on this page

GBIF (iNaturalist Research-grade Observations). Dated flowering annotations in California. Every record achieved iNaturalist quality grade Research, which is applied upstream at export. 10.15468/dl.wt38fd. Retrieved 2026-07-14.
World Flora Online Plant List. The accepted name. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.